The Coming Poet

"Is it far to the town?" said the poet, As he stood 'neath the groaning vane, And the warm lights shimmered silver On the skirts of the windy rain. "There are those who call me," he pleaded, "And I'm wet and travel sore." But nobody spoke from the shelter. And he turned from the bolted door.

And they wait in the town for the poet With stones at the gates, and jeers, But away on the wolds of distance In the blue of a thousand years He sleeps with the age that knows him, In the clay of the unborn, dead, Rest at his weary insteps, Fame at his crumbled head.